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Frederick F. Schmitt, Hume's Epistemology in the Treatise: A Veritistic Interpretation, Oxford University Press, 2014, 423pp., $99.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780199683116.
Reviewed by Kevin Meeker, University of South Alabama
This scholarly and philosophically rich treatment of Hume's epistemology furnishes a clear and comprehensive reading of Hume as a reliabilist about justified belief that is reminiscent of Alvin Goldman's naturalistic epistemology (for an explicit comparison, see especially 30).1 Because Humean justification is understood in terms of reliably attaining the non-instrumental cognitive goal of truth, Frederick F. Schmitt calls this a veritistic interpretation. Given this description, one might worry that Schmitt's discussion is simply an anachronistic attempt to impose contemporary categories on Hume. One need not entertain such worries. Although Schmitt admits that without contemporary work in. . .